White supremacist radio show got press credentials from Trump campaign

As the controversy surrounding white supremacist support for Donald Trump continues, the man behind what’s been labeled an “overtly racist” radio show revealed that he received full press credentials to a rally for the GOP frontrunner.

While promoting an interview with Donald Trump Jr., radio host James Edwards wrote on March 1 that he “attended a Donald Trump rally in Memphis on Saturday night as a fully credentialed member of the media and enjoyed the unique experience of being able to air a live broadcast of The Political Cesspool Radio Program from inside the press pen while the event was in full swing.”

Edwards added that he was granted VIP parking access while he was at the event.

Citing Trump’s plan to deport undocumented immigrants and build a wall along the US-Mexico border, Edwards praised the billionaire as the first Republican nominee to have earned his vote.

“The bottom line is that Trump is the only candidate who gives us a chance at having a fighter who will put America first. He’s the only candidate who isn’t owned and operated by special interests. With Trump, America has a chance to regain her identity,” he wrote.

The Political Cesspool radio show labels itself as “unapologetically pro-White … Even though Whites represented the vast majority of the American population, we had no mainstream voice.”

However, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors hate groups across the US, called The Political Cesspool “an overtly racist, anti-Semitic radio show.” The group noted that Edwards has featured a number of white supremacists as guests, including former Ku Klux Klan David Duke and Holocaust denier Willis Carto.

Duke himself recently endorsed Trump, igniting a firestorm of controversy. The Republican frontrunner then exacerbated the situation by declining to disavow the endorsement, arguing that he wasn’t knowledgeable enough about Duke to make a statement one way or another. He has since backtracked those comments by saying, “I disavow.”

Regarding Edwards, the Huffington Post asked the Trump campaign to explain why he was credentialed and why Trump’s son sat down for an interview with his show, but the campaign did not respond.

For his part, Edwards roundly rejected the claim that he is a white supremacist.

“My show, The Political Cesspool, promotes a proud, paleoconservative Christian worldview, and we reject media descriptions of our work as ‘white supremacist,’ ‘pro-slavery’ and other such scare words,” he wrote in a statement.

“In no way should anyone interpret our press credentialing and subsequent interview with Donald Trump, Jr. as any kind of endorsement by the Trump campaign. The grotesque way in which the media is purposefully misrepresenting my work and taking certain cherry-picked statements wildly out of context is both shameful and reprehensible.”

In the past, Edwards has argued that the white people and culture in the US is under attack. In 2007, he said railed against “Zionist Jews” who “hate Christianity” and are “using pornography as a subversive tool against us,” according to the SPLC. He has also said he believes relations between races were better during the Jim Crow era.

“The reason why America was a First World nation was because we had a First World population, and as we continue to be inundated with people from Third World nations we are going to become a Third World nation,” he said on another show in 2007. “America is on the verge of collapse.”

The behavior of some Trump rally attendees has also stirred allegations of racism. Earlier this week, supporters were seen heckling and pushing a black woman out of a rally as Trump egged them on. The woman said she was called a “n***er” and a “c**t” before getting kicked out.

“Get out!” Trump said as the woman was pushed out. He lamented “political correctness” as the crowd booed the lady as well. At the same rally, other black students also said they were attacked and booted by rally attendees.